Our Family Pictures

Okay, so I have wanted family pictures taken for a LONG time. I finally decided it was time to buckle down and do it. As you may imagine, it was very difficult to get everybody to cooperate. This family pic is our favorits because everyone except Conrad is looking. Quite and acomplishment I have to say!! The others are my favorites of the kids.

Kendra Stowell, a family friend took our pictures. She did an awesome job! We are grateful for her patience. Also, the time she took out of her busy life with 2 kids to take the pictures of our family. Thank you Kendra!!!

The kids did much better alone. We got a whole bunch of cute ones.












Kendra also took Hailey's 4 year old pictures. There were so many cute ones, I can't decide which ones to print.

Hailey's 4th Birthday

Saturday the 18th was Hailey's 4th birthday. It was a fun day. She has been anticipating it for at least two months. We made a count down chain like 6 weeks ago.

Grandma Porter came over from Boise. We went to Craigo's Pizza for lunch. And the party began at six. My parents, Trent, Alisa, Kendra and Hailey's best friend Ilzay were there too. She had a blast opening presents and having Happy Birthday sung to her. She has loved playing with all of her new gifts from the party. Thanks for all of the gifts and also all of the birthday cards sent to her. Here are some pics and a couple of video clips from her big day. The one dark clip is Hailey blowing out her candles and the other was a clip we thought was funny (hopefully it isn't a you had to be there funny).

Where has all of Jackson's hair gone?

Looking a Jackson now, you would never know he was born with tons of long brown hair. It's so sad. He now has red hair and is losing it fast. I think blonde hair is coming in. Oh well, he is still such a cutie!! (For some reason his eyes look brown in all of his pics. They are blue.)

Last week was crazy busy!

Okay. So last Sunday was General Conference. We sent the kids downstairs to play so we could actually get something out of it. When they came upstairs they were covered in a gray powder. We couldn't even figure out what it was. Turns our that they found a bag of grout powder left by the builders that we didn't even know about. They were pretending it was flour and making a cake. WHAT A MESS!! I guess it's good the basement isn't finished. You gotta love kids.

My mom, sister-in-law (Alisa), and I picked apples on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday we made frozen apple pie filling. I am still making dried apples. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast watching those apples getting peeled. The pie filling turned out great too.

Friday we went to Utah for Brooke's daughte Rebecca's blessing. The drive there was great. Saturday we spent some time with Bo's cousins from Colorado (who were visiting for another blessing). Then we hung out we my side Hailey had a blast with her cousins. They always love to dress her up. Everybody got a sitter Saturday night and the adults got a sitter. It was fun. We went to California Pizza Kitchen.

Sunday we went to the blessing and had some lunch then left. The drive home wasn't as great as the drive there. We got stuck in trafic in Willard

of all places. There was a bad snowstorm and like five wrecks in a two mile strip. We could only go five mph. But, once we got through there things went much smoother. The 3 and a half hour trip ended up taking four and a half hours. Yuck! The week before, I would have never even thought it was possible for a storm on this trip. I guess we may just go from summer to winter with no Fall. We already went from winter to summer with no Spring this year!

5 Year Anniversary

Okay, sorry I keep adding stuff from way back. But, I just found these pictures and had to add them. Our 5 year anniversary was March 28 and we decided to do sealings in the newely dedicated Rexburg temple. After that we went up to West Yellowstone to stay for a night. This first picture is from our room on the third floor. It is only about 1 hour and 20 minutes from Rexburg and we could not believe how much snow there was still (normally the may have a couple inches). It was as tall as some buildings. Last winter was crazy! When we went to leave, our car was covered. We weren't even there for 24 hours! The drive back was scary too. There was drifting snow most of the way. We still had fun and it was nice to have a little getaway with just us before the new addition to our family.

The 8's in my Life

8 Favorite TV SHOWS:
1. House
2. Ugly Betty
3. 24 (I agree with Emily, you have to watch the DVD's. It's much better.)
4. Heroes
5. Kyle XY (I know this looks like a dumb show, but Bo and I love it.)
6. Friday Night Lights (I don't even like football, but I like the sappy high school love stories)
7. Lost
8. The Office (Who doesn't like this one?)

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1. Thai House
2. Thai House
3. Thai House (I love this place, I could eat it everyday!)
4. Garcias
5. I love Chinese, but can't find a great restaurant in IF, any suggestions.
6 Texas Roadhouse
7. Stockman's
8. Cheesecake Factory

8 Things that happened yesterday:
1. Conrad woke up just before I left for my run at 6:10. Not cool.
2. Went on a walk
3. Dried apples and made frozen apple pie filling
4. Took care of the kids
5. Watched some tv
6. Had dinner with my family
7. Ran to the store to get medicine I already had
8. Bought my last storage container for food storage for awhile!

8 Things I'm looking forward to:
1. Joining a rec center
2. Trip to Utah this weekend
3. Conrad being potty trained
4. Jackson sitting
5. The weekend! (I love the weekend!)
6. The Holidays
7. Hailey's Birthday on the 18th
8. Bedtime for the kids and spending time with Bo.

8 Things on my wish list:
1. A decorator (I don't even know where to begin)
2. A Bosch to help make bread faster
3. An upturn in the Economy
4. a longer fuse, some days mine is just too short.
5. a longer summer
6. Bo to be done with school
7. a good nights sleep again
8. my kids like having the house clean as much as I do

8 Peeps I'm tagging:
1. I don't know if I have 8. I just started blogging, let's see...
2. Jeanie Christensen
3. Kendra Stowell
4. Erika Radford
5. Holly Merkley
6. I think that's it. I'm working on getting more of my family to do this, but so far Jeanie's the only one.

Hailey is growing up on us

I can't believe it. Hailey will be 4 in about a week. Time goes by so fast. She just started a dance class and preschool. She loves it. Dance is her favorite. It's mine too because we get to stay and watch them dance through the window in the studio. It is so cute! They all have the same outfits and it's just darling.


Preschool is great for her and great for Conrad and me. We get to have some one on one time. We don't get a lot because Hailey demands MUCH more attention than Conrad. She is definitely the oldest child.

Conrad's 2nd Birthday

Sorry I forgot to add this first. Conrad's birthday was April 3. We had a fun birthday party for him. He got cars (he loves cars) and clothes. It was fun because he actually knew there was something underneath the paper. It's always fun when they hit that point. Christmas should be so fun this year!!

Jack's Blessing and Spud Day Weekend

We were finally able to bless Jack on September 21. It was a special day and almost everybody on both sides of the family was able to share it with us. Bo did a great job ( I am grateful men have the Priesthood). We had a dinner afterward. Thank you to all that could share the day with us.

The blessing fell on the weekend of Spud Day. Everybody was able to go to the parade. It was rainy this year, but we had plenty of fun. The kids loved it. Conrad wasn't too sure about the sirens or
the rain. But, he LOVES sugar and everybody threw candy. That was his favorite part.  Hailey loved everything about the parade. We went and got them corn dogs afterward (another favorite). We also had to get a free spud.

The kids both did the potato race and had lots of fun doing that! Jack had fun being carried around in his snugli.



It was a very busy weekend. But, it was great.

Our Camping trip

We went camping with some friends at Warm River in August. If you haven’t gone camping with kids, it is quite the adventure. We had a great time. Bo took the kids out on a small lake in the rubber raft. They caught 10 fish. Conrad loved it. He loves to fishing He asks all the time to go. They played in the dirt a lot. They were covered in dirt head to toe. Jack did really well too. Conrad was bitten my a mosquito the last day and his eye swelled shut. He didn’t like it. You can still see where he was bitten. I can’t believe it has taken so long to heal.

Jackson's Birth and Minor Complications

12 days after we moved into our house, Jackson decided it was time to come. He was exactly 3 weeks early and in such a hurry, I didn't get any pain meds (for those trying to decided whether an epidural is right for them, I have to say DO IT!). Jackson was born 50 minutes after we arrived at the hospital. He weighed in at 6 lbs 3 oz and was 19 inches long. He had a full head of beautiful hair. It was one of the best days of my life because he was healthy and beautiful and I was no longer pregnant!!

When Jackson was 5 days old, he was readmitted to the hospital for Jaundice his billi was 23 and I was freaking out. After a day under the lights we were able to go home. His billi had dropped to 17. Jackson was on the billi blanket for another week, and had to get his blood tested almost every day until he was 15 days old. Finally, it dropped low enough to quit testing.

We were so happy to get past that point, and about 2 weeks later we got a call from the pediatrician saying that Jackson's PKU had come back with a couple of problems. Anybody that knows me knows I am good at worrying and the worrying began. The doctors were concerned that he might have Hypothyroidism (if not treated babies slowly go mentally retarded) and another metabolic disorder. We went for the 3rd PKU. Three very long weeks later we found out that the one metabolic disorder was ok. But, they still didn't know if he had Hypothyroidism. So, more blood had to be taken and I was going crazy. About a week later we learned Jack doesn’t have Hypothyroidism but does have TBU deficiency. This isn't a big deal luckily; it just shows up on Lab work.

Once again, I could finally take a breath of relief. But two weeks later, we ran into another problem. We came home from church at 4 one Sunday, and Jack just started crying (at first this was no big deal because he had been colicky), at one point we decided to give him Tylenol because this helps colic sometimes. But, a couple hours later I noticed he had a fever. It was 101.4. Once again I started freaking out. Then Jack just stared acting weird. Every time we touched him or moved him, he would scream this horrible sad cry. So, off to the emergency room we went. It was at about 10:00. After the doctor checked out Jack he said they wanted to check his urine, blood, and do a spinal tap. The first attempt failed, but finally they got some spinal fluid. Finally at 3:00 am we found out he was being admitted because he had white blood cells in his spinal fluid. At 5:30 am we were finally settled into our room. Then at 7 the doc came in. He totally freaked me out with all of the problems that he "could" have and told me we just had to wait for the cultures to grow out.

They put in a pick line on Wednesday. This was the breaking point for me. He had had 4
IV's in 3 days and when I heard him start to cry through the door, I broke down. It was a miserable 5 days for him and for our family. He was finally released on Thursday afternoon, when the cultures had grown back.

Jack had strep pnemoniae , which children are vaccinated 3 times for in the first 6 months of life (pneumococcal conjugate vaccine). We never found out if he had meningitis because his white
blood cell count was fairly low in the spinal cord and the doc in the ER gave him an antibiotic before the spinal tap, duh! But, they treated him for meningitis. He was on IV therapy at home for 10 more days.

It has been a month since then, and Jack is happy and healthy. We are so grateful that Heavenly Father watched over our little guy and he won't have any long term complications.

Our move to Rigby

Last November Bo bought a warehouse in Lewisville for his website business. We were tired of the 25 minute drive to and from work, especially on the snowy and scariest part of Hwy 20. We decided to build a house in February. Soon after, we put our house in Rexburg up for sale and closed on it the end of May. We moved to my parents’ house for a couple of weeks until ours was finished. We moved in June 6th.
We love it here. The best part is that Bo's drive to work is 5 minutes and the drive is on country roads. And, many of our friends live here.